SUSPENSIONS

PRESENTED BY:SUHAS S
&
SUDARSHAN M P

Historical Suspensions

Henry Ford's 1908 Model T Ford featured old-fashioned leaf

springs with a novel twist

he used only one spring at each axle, mounted transversely,

instead of one at each wheel.

Ford's adaptation of high-strength vanadium steel from a

French racing car allowed him to save weight and cut costs in
many areas of the Model T without compromising its durability.

The First practical air suspension

The first practical air suspension was developed by

Firestone in 1933 for an experimental car called the
Stout-Scarab.
This was a rear-engined vehicle that used four
rubberized bellows in place of conventional springs.
Air was supplied by small compressors attached to
each bellow. As you might imagine, the air bag
suspension was an expensive setup -- still is, in fact.

Introduction to How Car Suspen

sions Work

When people think of automobile performance, they

normally think of horsepower, torque and zero-to-60
acceleration.
. But all of the power generated by a piston engine is
useless if the driver can't control the car.
That's why automobile engineers turned their attention
to the suspension system almost as soon as they had
mastered the four-stroke internal combustion engine.
The job of a car suspension is to maximize the friction
between the tires and the road surface, to provide
steering stability with good handling and to ensure the
comfort of the passengers. In PPT, we'll explore how car
suspensions work, how they've evolved over the years
and where the design of suspensions is headed in the
future.

How Car Suspensions Work

If a road were perfectly flat, with no irregularities,

suspensions wouldn't be necessary. But roads are
far from flat. Even freshly paved highways have
subtle imperfections that can interact with the
wheels of a car. It's these imperfections that apply
forces to the wheels.
. According to Newton's laws of motion, all forces
have both magnitude and direction. A bump in
the road causes the wheel to move up and down
perpendicular to the road surface.
The magnitude, of course, depends on whether the
wheel is striking a giant bump or a tiny speck.
Either way, the car wheel experiences a vertical
acceleration as it passes over an imperfection.

How Car Suspensions Work

How Car Suspensions Work

Without an intervening structure, all of wheel's vertical

energy is transferred to the frame, which moves in the
same direction. In such a situation, the wheels can lose
contact with the road completely.
Then, under the downward force of gravity, the wheels
can slam back into the road surface. What you need is
a system that will absorb the energy of the vertically
accelerated wheel, allowing the frame and body to ride
undisturbed while the wheels follow bumps in the road.
The study of the forces at work on a moving car is
called vehicle dynamics, and you need to understand
some of these concepts in order to appreciate why a
suspension is necessary in the first place

dynamics of a moving car from

two perspectives:
Ride

- a car's ability to smooth out a bumpy

road
Handling - a car's ability to safely
accelerate, brake and corner
These two characteristics can be further
described in three important principles road isolation, road holding and
cornering. The table below describes these
principles and how engineers attempt to
solve the challenges unique to each.

Car Suspension Parts

The suspension of a car is actually

part of the chassis, which comprises
all of the important systems located
beneath the car's body.

Car Suspension Parts

These systems include:

The frame - structural, load-carrying component
that supports the car's engine and body, which are
in turn supported by the suspension
The suspension system - setup that supports
weight, absorbs and dampens shock and helps
maintain tire contact
The steering system - mechanism that enables
the driver to guide and direct the vehicle
The tires and wheels - components that make
vehicle motion possible by way of grip and/or
friction with the road

Car Suspension Parts

Coil

springs - This is the most common

type of spring and is, in essence, a heavyduty torsion bar coiled around an axis. Coil
springs compress and expand to absorb the
motion of the wheels.

Car Suspension Parts

Leaf springs - This type of spring consists of

several layers of metal (called "leaves") bound
together to act as a single unit. Leaf springs were
first used on horse-drawn carriages and were found
on most American automobiles until 1985. They are
still used today on most trucks and heavy-duty
vehicles.

Car Suspension Parts

Torsion bars - Torsion bars use the twisting properties of a

steel bar to provide coil-spring-like performance. This is how
they work: One end of a bar is anchored to the vehicle frame.
The other end is attached to a wishbone, which acts like a
lever that moves perpendicular to the torsion bar. When the
wheel hits a bump, vertical motion is transferred to the
wishbone and then, through the levering action, to the torsion
bar. The torsion bar then twists along its axis to provide the
spring force. European carmakers used this system
extensively, as did Packard and Chrysler in the United States,
through the 1950s and 1960s.

Car Suspension Parts

Air springs - Air springs, which consist of a

cylindrical chamber of air positioned between the
wheel and the car's body, use the compressive
qualities of air to absorb wheel vibrations. The
concept is actually more than a century old and
could be found on horse-drawn buggies. Air springs
from this era were made from air-filled, leather
diaphragms, much like a bellows; they were
replaced with molded-rubber air springs in the
1930s.

Springs: Sprung and

Unsprung Mass

The sprung mass is the mass of the vehicle

supported on the springs, while the unsprung mass is
loosely defined as the mass between the road and the
suspension springs
The stiffness of the springs affects how the sprung
mass responds while the car is being driven. Loosely
sprung cars, such as luxury cars (think
Lincoln Town Car ), can swallow bumps and provide a
super-smooth ride; however, such a car is prone to
dive and squat during braking and acceleration and
tends to experience body sway or roll during cornering.
Tightly sprung cars, such as sports cars (think Mazda
Miata), are less forgiving on bumpy roads, but they
minimize body motion well, which means they can be
driven aggressively, even around corners

Dampers: Shock Absorbers

while springs by themselves seem like simple devices,

designing and implementing them on a car to balance
passenger comfort with handling is a complex task. And
to make matters more complex, springs alone can't
provide a perfectly smooth ride. Why? Because springs
are great at absorbing energy, but not so good at
dissipating it. Other structures, known as dampers,
are required to do this
Unless a dampening structure is present, a car spring
will extend and release the energy it absorbs from a
bump at an uncontrolled rate. The spring will continue
to bounce at its natural frequency until all of the energy
originally put into it is used up. A suspension built on
springs alone would make for an extremely bouncy ride
and, depending on the terrain, an uncontrollable car.

Dampers: Shock Absorbers

Enter the shock absorber, or snubber, a device

that controls unwanted spring motion through a
process known as dampening. Shock absorbers
slow down and reduce the magnitude of vibratory
motions by turning the kinetic energy of suspension
movement into heat energy that can be dissipated
through hydraulic fluid. To understand how this
works, it's best to look inside a shock absorber to
see its structure and function.

Dampers: Shock Absorbers

Dampers: Struts and Antisway Bars

Another common dampening structure is the strut -basically a shock absorber mounted inside a coil
spring. Struts perform two jobs: They provide a
dampening function like shock absorbers, and they
provide structural support for the vehicle
suspension. That means struts deliver a bit more than
shock absorbers, which don't support vehicle weight -they only control the speed at which weight is
transferred in a car, not the weight itself.
Because shocks and struts have so much to do with
the handling of a car, they can be considered critical
safety features. Worn shocks and struts can allow
excessive vehicle-weight transfer from side to side and
front to back. This reduces the tire's ability to grip the
road, as well as handling and braking performance.

Dampers: Struts and Antisway Bars

Anti-sway Bars

Anti-sway bars (also known as anti-roll bars) are used

along with shock absorbers or struts to give a moving
automobile additional stability. An anti-sway bar is a
metal rod that spans the entire axle and effectively
joins each side of the suspension together.
When the suspension at one wheel moves up and
down, the anti-sway bar transfers movement to the
other wheel. This creates a more level ride and
reduces vehicle sway. In particular, it combats the
roll of a car on its suspension as it corners. For this
reason, almost all cars today are fitted with anti-sway
bars as standard equipment, although if they're not,
kits make it easy to install the bars at any time.

Anti-sway Bars

Suspension Types: Front

So far, our discussions have focused on how springs

and dampers function on any given wheel. But the four
wheels of a car work together in two independent
systems -- the two wheels connected by the front axle
and the two wheels connected by the rear axle. That
means that a car can and usually does have a different
type of suspension on the front and back
. Much is determined by whether a rigid axle binds the
wheels or if the wheels are permitted to move
independently. The former arrangement is known as a
dependent system, while the latter arrangement is
known as an independent system. In the following
sections, we'll look at some of the common types of
front and back suspensions typically used on
mainstream cars.

Suspension Types: Front

Dependent Front Suspensions

Dependent front suspensions have a rigid front axle
that connects the front wheels. Basically, this looks
like a solid bar under the front of the car, kept in
place by leaf springs and shock absorbers. Common
on trucks, dependent front suspensions haven't
been used in mainstream cars for years.
Independent Front Suspensions
In this setup, the front wheels are allowed to move
independently. The McPherson strut, developed
by Earle S. McPherson of General Motors in 1947, is
the most widely used front suspension system,
especially in cars of European origin.

Suspension Types: Front

Suspension Types: Front

The

McPherson strut combines a shock

absorber and a coil spring into a single
unit. This provides a more compact and
lighter suspension system that can be
used for front-wheel drive vehicles.
The double-wishbone suspension ,
also known as an A-arm suspension, is
another common type of front
independent suspension.

Suspension Types: Front

Suspension Types: Rear

Dependent Rear Suspensions

If a solid axle connects the rear wheels of a car, then the
suspension is usually quite simple -- based either on a
leaf spring or a coil spring. In the former design, the leaf
springs clamp directly to the drive axle. The ends of the
leaf springs attach directly to the frame, and the shock
absorber is attached at the clamp that holds the spring
to the axle. For many years, American car manufacturers
preferred this design because of its simplicity.
The same basic design can be achieved with coil springs
replacing the leaves. In this case, the spring and shock
absorber can be mounted as a single unit or as separate
components. When they're separate, the springs can be
much smaller, which reduces the amount of space the
suspension takes up.

Suspension Types: Rear

Independent Rear Suspensions

If both the front and back suspensions are independent,
then all of the wheels are mounted and sprung
individually, resulting in what car advertisements tout as
"four-wheel independent suspension." Any suspension
that can be used on the front of the car can be used on
the rear, and versions of the front independent systems
described in the previous section can be found on the
rear axles. Of course, in the rear of the car, the steering
rack -- the assembly that includes the pinion gear wheel
and enables the wheels to turn from side to side -- is
absent. This means that rear independent suspensions
can be simplified versions of front ones, although the
basic principles remain the same.

The Bose Suspension System

The Bose Suspension System

How does it work? The Bose system uses a linear

electromagnetic motor (LEM) at each wheel in lieu of
a conventional shock-and-spring setup. Amplifiers
provide electricity to the motors in such a way that
their power is regenerated with each compression of
the system. The main benefit of the motors is that they
are not limited by the inertia inherent in conventional
fluid-based dampers. As a result, an LEM can extend
and compress at a much greater speed, virtually
eliminating all vibrations in the passenger cabin. The
wheel's motion can be so finely controlled that the body
of the car remains level regardless of what's happening
at the wheel. The LEM can also counteract the body
motion of the car while accelerating, braking and
cornering, giving the driver a greater sense of control.

The Bose Suspension System

The Bose Suspension System